Let's see if there are some areas in which atheists and the more liberal religious can find common ground.

First of all, let's get the key point of disagreement noted and put to one side for the moment. For as long as there are both theists and atheists, they are going to disagree about the existence and characteristics of a supernatural intervening God. So let's agree to disagree for the time being on that. There will be plenty of other opportunities to debate that particular topic.

It seems to me that there are a number of areas in which atheists and the liberal religious can find common ground. The most important area is in ethics and morality, and how we establish moral principles. Some years ago Bishop Richard Holloway wrote a most interesting book Godless Morality: Keeping Religion out of Ethics. In it, he selected two key starting points.

☸ "The use of God in moral debate is so problematic as to be almost worthless. We can debate with one another as to whether this or that alleged claim genuinely emanated from God, but who can honestly adjudicate in such an Olympian debate? That is why it is better to leave God out of the moral debate and find good human reasons for supporting the system or approach we advocate, without having recourse to divinely clinching arguments."

☸ "A wrong act is one that manifestly harms others or their interests, or violates their rights or causes injustice."

With this, Holloway removes from consideration all claims of Biblical authority over morals. Nothing should be considered moral or immoral merely because the Bible says so. Also, Holloway removes from consideration all claims of good or harm that might come to somebody's soul in any afterlife, since knowledge of that requires an adjudicator for the "Olympian debate". Thus an act is judged ethical or otherwise based on its intended and probable consequences here on earth.

These are two principles to which I think a wide range of people, from the more liberal members of Christianity and various other religions, through various shades of agnosticism to those who are convinced atheists, can all assent. Even among the more traditional Christians, this idea operates to a certain extent, in that many would take the view that God is hardly likely to offer a reward in heaven for an act which does harm on earth, and vice versa. The only ones who will disagree are the moral absolutists who claim that their scripture or their understanding of the divine will is the only valid source of morality, irrespective of the earthly effect of actions taken under their moral system.

Another aspect which can probably be fairly widely agreed on by this group is what the late Sir Isaiah Berlin described as the pluralism of values, by which he means that "not all good things are compatible, still less all the ideals of mankind." For example, he points out

that neither political equality nor efficient organization nor social justice is compatible with more than a modicum of individual liberty, and certainly not with unrestricted laissez-faire; that justice and generosity, public and private loyalties, the demands of genius and the claims of society can conflict violently with each other.

In other words, moral dilemmas exist, not in choosing between good and evil, but in the inevitable choices which have to be made between different forms of good which cannot all be wholly and simultaneously accommodated. Social justice is good, and so is individual liberty, but each must be circumscribed to some extent in order to make some room for the other. Because you are dealing with different forms of good, there is no single obviously right answer as to what the correct balance between them should be. Moreover, the view of each of us as to where the correct balance should be may change with time and circumstances. In turn, that means that we should be very hesitant to force our own view of the appropriate balance on others.

But finding points of agreement and areas for mutual tolerance is not newsworthy. Instead, publish another article in which one side bashes the other over their points of difference. It will get far more comments.